Death Valley

The transformation was radical. In the village of Matta, the police post sported a new sign: "Taliban Station." So did the precinct in Kabal. In Kalam village, Dr. Fazli Raziq's barber disappeared, driven out of business by a new edict prohibiting men from shaving their beards. Fazli's wife, Zaibi, stopped leaving the house, preferring to stay inside rather than replace her headscarf with the freshly mandated shuttlecock burqa that left only a mesh opening for the eyes. Then militants threatened to bomb their daughter's school. All in all, five out of seven subdistricts — some 68 villages — in this picturesque valley 100 miles (160 km) from the capital are under the control of an extremist group that has torched music shops, beheaded policemen and tried to blow up centuries-old Buddhist monuments.

No, this is not Afghanistan. It is the Swat Valley, Pakistan's biggest tourist destination, home to the country's only ski slope and a haven for trout-fishing. Its people are deeply conservative Muslims, yet highly tolerant of the liberal ways of international visitors. In recent months, however, Swat has changed. Maulana Fazlullah, a fundamentalist preacher known as the "FM Mullah" for his daily radio sermons, has launched a campaign for the establishment of Islamic law, or Shari'a, in the valley. Fazlullah is backed by Pakistani extremists who share an Islamist ideology with the Afghan Taliban next door. These militants have unleashed a wave of violence on Swat that has claimed nearly 300 lives, mostly security personnel, and that has driven nearly half a million residents from their homes. "Swat used to be a paradise," says Zaibi Raziq. "I used to go on walks every day with my family and friends. But we stopped going out; we stayed inside, discussing what might happen next." The next time she left her home, it was for good. On Oct. 29 Zaibi and her family fled Kalam, leaving a TV, a computer and all their furniture behind.

When Pakistan's President, General Pervez Musharraf, declared emergency rule on Nov. 3, he cited the threat of Swat's mounting insurgency as justification. But, so far, Musharraf has used his emergency powers mainly to jail opponents and journalists, and to oust the Supreme Court judges who were about to pronounce his recent re-election as President unconstitutional. (On Nov. 19, a newly reconstituted Supreme Court comprising Musharraf loyalists decreed his re-election lawful.) While the government concentrates on putting out opposition rallies in the capital Islamabad, extremist wildfires are erupting across the land. Since the imposition of emergency rule, the violence has actually gotten worse: sectarian strife on the Afghan border has claimed more than 100 lives, and at least four police and eight frontier-corps soldiers have been beheaded in Swat. "Musharraf's emergency was just a pretext," says Shah Jehan, director of the Institute of Management Studies at Peshawar University. "If he really wanted to do something [about terrorism] he would have pulled the plug on the FM Mullah. Instead, things are getting worse."

Radicalism has been on the rise for several years in Pakistan. Many members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, fleeing the U.S. assault on their bases in Afghanistan, have taken advantage of the porous border between the countries to regroup in the remote, mountainous tribal areas of Waziristan. But Swat is different. The virtual takeover by extremists of a populous, settled area so close to Islamabad marks a significant advance in local militancy. "Swat is a symbol," says a Western military official based in Islamabad. "Mullah Fazlullah's influence is spreading — it doesn't look good."